Spotify Overhauls Android App

By Pradeep Chandrasekaran on 04/19/2012

After Android Spotify fans have been under the impression of being a lower priority to the iOS version of the musical app, Spotify has rolled out an update for them with what seems to be a complete overhaul resulting in a beta version of the app. The update which won’t be automatically pushed to devices for now has a revamp in entirety for users which includes full support for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and a UI that is based on a slide-out navigation drawer. Also available is the ability to see your friends’ profile pages and what playlists they have save along with added artist exploration capability. That last feature has not been available on both, Android and iOS prior to this Android update. Another thing that was significant about the new beta app is its speed. Apparently even on an older device the application was considerably zippier and even though it is in beta users have not yet faced any freezing or crashing glitches that annoyed previous Android version users.

One thing that was missing however was Last.fm scrobbling and the much wanted playlist folders are still nowhere to be seen. On that note however, a spokesperson from Spotify said that playlist folders would be added before the application is live on Google Play but now that it is still in beta, not everything has been implemented as yet which is very interesting given the dramatic differences already on the app.

If you want to get a feel of the newly overhauled app before it goes official, you will first have to allow installations from unknown sources on your phone (Settings > Applications > Unknown Sources > tick). When you are done with that, click here to hit up the Spotify website where you will be able to download the .apk file or just click here. After providing the necessary permissions, it will overwrite the existing Spotify for Android app. As with all of Spotify’s mobile apps, you’ll need a Premium account to play music but any registered user can download and play around with the new beta version of the app.